1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing system which is formed of a plurality of nodes each connected to networks. The nodes operate as either a manager or as an agent. Further, the manager supervises information in the agents which is covered (managed) by the manager itself. Particularly, it relates to a data processing system which can realize the supervision of information without an increase in traffic (i.e., various signals, data, messages, etc.) on the networks. In the present invention, a "super manager" is provided to supervise information instead of a faulty manager so that it is possible to realize double supervision by utilizing both the manager and the super manager.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a data processing system formed of a plurality of nodes connected to networks, there are nodes which operate as managers (below, manager nodes) and other nodes which operate as agents (below agent nodes). The nodes are previously specified in the networks. In this system, the manager node supervises information in the particular agents which are managed by the manager node, in response to polling operations to each of agents.
In the data processing system having above the structure, when a failure occurs in any manager, it is impossible for such a manager to supervise information in the agents.
Conventionally, in order to solve the above problem, a plurality of managers supervise the same information in the agents. That is, when the manager A supervises information in the agents "a", "b" and "c" in accordance with the polling operations to these agents, another manager B also supervises the same information included in the agents "a", "b" and "c" in accordance with the polling operations to these agents.
However, according to the above conventional art, there is a problem that the traffic on the networks considerably increases because a plurality of managers simultaneously perform the polling operations to the agents.